"Through-year assessments" are assessments that are administered in multiple parts and at different times over the course of a school year that also produce summative scores that can be used with state accountability systems (Lorié et al., 2021; Dadey & Gong, 2023). These assessments are alternatively known as instructionally…

This article presents a conceptual framework for trust in standardised assessments. Standardised assessments play an important role in many education systems as they inform decisions about students' future schooling career or entry to the labour market. Also, standardised assessments are often used for teacher performance reviews and school…

In response to the shifting educational landscape and the growing emphasis on responsibility and quality, quality assurance systems in higher education have experienced significant modification throughout time. These systems are essential for assuring the delivery of high-quality educational programmes and preserving the standing and reputation of…

This report presents changes in educator and student outcomes for HISD, Achieve 180 Program schools, and non-Achieve 180 comparison schools which were Title I, Part A campuses for the fifth year of the program. Positive effects of the Achieve 180 Program were observed although there were still challenges which Achieve 180 Program schools needed to…

While countries differ in their approach to and context of teacher evaluation, many have one thing in common--they hope it serves its formative and summative purposes. In this article, the author asks policymakers, educators and researchers to reconsider how these dual purposes are accomplished. Current approaches and research both in and outside…

Since the early 2000s, accountability and evaluation have been regarded by policymakers as key mechanisms for "fixing" teacher education and by many teacher education leaders as vehicles for elevating the status of the profession and uniting a fragmented field. Although educational inequity has been an enduring and endemic problem during…

As publicly funded private school tuition systems have expanded, independent research has documented their negative outcomes. However, the prevalence of the programs continues to grow. This brief summarizes the research evidence about vouchers and identifies three areas of policy design that are especially important for student success and a…

A pronounced development of the 21st century is the technological revolution, which is leading to a global world that creates more multicultural, intercultural, and diverse communities. These developments influence our lives in various ways, one of which relates to education. Educational systems are facing complicated challenges, as they need to…

This paper furthers the understanding of literacy being developed through this Special Issue by bringing a pluralistic, complex account of literacy into conversation with assessment. The rise of neoliberalism in education--and its related focus on standards, accountability, and efficiency--has seen literacy positioned as the "core…

There has been a call for balanced assessment systems which resulted from a recognition that most state summative assessments poorly served the primary purpose of assessment: improving learning and instruction. Educators understand that large-scale summative tests are far too distal from instruction, at the wrong grain size, and administered at…

In this piece the author provides a critical response to the new 'Looking at Our School' quality framework in Ireland and illustrates how policy overlooks critical scholarship. The author questions the claim that the updated policy reflects recent thinking and developments, and critiques the policy's stance on notions of both distributed…

This article examines the needs in New York State for public policy to address disparities in educational outcomes, opportunities to learn and appropriate evaluations that assess student readiness to advance in their education or work opportunities. Several proposals for educational public policy changes and practices are offered in the conclusion…

From uneven digital access and growing academic gaps to reports of students missing or disengaged since March 2020, it is evident that English Learners (ELs) have endured some of the pandemic's gravest impacts on students across the United States. But because the pandemic has affected state assessment systems as well as instruction, it is…

The dialogue on what constitutes quality teacher preparation and how it should be assessed and evaluated is muddled. It begins neatly with a universal agreement and aspiration for quality teaching and enhanced PK-12 student achievement, then quickly scatters when there are attempts to define and weigh key components of academic excellence.…

This paper seeks to reconceptualise the basis for trusting teachers in current educational discourses. It proposes moving away from trust based on 'absolute accuracy' to trust as encapsulated in the practice of parrhesia. On the surface, parrhesia appears to be the opposite of Sartre's concept of 'bad faith'. Paradoxically, however, our attempts…